


Past

by arcaneGash



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Implied Relationships, Parent Death, mention of canon character, mostly just oc/oc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-13
Updated: 2014-03-13
Packaged: 2018-01-15 13:50:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1307110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcaneGash/pseuds/arcaneGash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The musings of a lusus about his ward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Past

**Author's Note:**

> proof i can write something other than lesbians  
> here have some nice cheesy parental death instead  
> starring my troll oc and his lusus who dies because of reasons

It was the scent that first drew you to him. You were minding your own business, slithering through your caves like any other typical night, when a smell struck you and ingrained itself so deeply in your nostrils and brain you were sure you would go insane if you didn’t locate the source. Instinct ordered you to seek it out, and you obeyed.  
He was stumbling around in a haze that seemed a combination of excitement and panic and wonder and terror. His long hair was entangled and matted and he was laced with cuts; dirt was caked firmly into the forming scabs. Your hearts nearly burst at the sight. His horns reminded you of something; later you would realize that they bore the resemblance to your own forked tongue and your own long, slightly curved fang. Nothing would convince you that this meeting was not meant to be.  
He stared up at you with the same mix of amazement and fear, and though he gritted his teeth and clenched his fists, there was a softness in his eyes, a pleading with you not to hurt him.  
It was both the lacerations in his skin and the fine ring of bright green around his irises that told you that he was the one, the source of the scent. It was your job to care for him from that day on. You slithered toward him, trying to look as non-dangerous as you could. He took a step back, and his posture indicated he was about to run. That must have been how he had survived encounters with the other lusii, hellbent on culling him. Unsurprising; his stature was agile, fit more for sneak attacks than full-on strength. Perfect for a lusus like yourself. Thinking quickly, you reared up as tall as you could manage and smacked your head on a stalactite. You winced at the flare of pain, but bent forward to display the top of your head, bleeding slowly, to him.  
You gave him plenty of time to look at it before meeting his eyes again. The fear had vanished from his gaze, and the tiniest smile stretched his lips. He knew. He toddled toward you, arms outstretched. The end of your tail swept him close to you as you embraced him as best as an enormous viper can embrace something with arms.  
He needed a name. Your mouth opened, unbidden, and your tongue swiped upward across his face. He giggled and patted you playfully on the nose.  
“Skolec” you hissed. He wriggled in delight, but then slumped forward a little bit and rested his head on one of your coils. The tiny troll was exhausted, and possibly ill too. Your tongue flicked out again, and you could sense other lusii lurking not too far away, ready for a challenge. You gently shifted him so he was near the tip of your tail, curled safely around him, and slithered out of the caves and into the darkness and cold of the Alternian deserts at night.

The next few sweeps were honestly blissful. You had always wanted to care for a ward, but as you watched your lusus companions find their own and leave for a new life, you had begun to doubt you would find one.  
Skolec grew to be a troll you were proud of. His hunting skills were unmatched, you felt, even if he happened to lack foresight and was often distracted by a clump of fur or a feather and a disembodied lizard tail on multiple occasions.  
Your hive was quite nice, you decided, and part of you wished you could track down the drone who constructed it. Its entrance was only visible when you were looking at an inconspicuous boulder from exactly the right angle, and both of you only needed to move it slightly to squeeze through. It led down under the sand into what you thought was a burrow inside a rock buried under the ground, so the two of you were always encased in cool stone. During the harsh daylight, you would sun yourself and occasionally snap up some food. At night, Skolec would awaken and explore beyond the hive.  
He began meeting new trolls, whom he would sometimes talk about with you. Nepeta lived not too far away, just where the jungle and the desert met, and you often encouraged him to play with her, even if he seemed disgusted at the thought. He had a friend whom he referred to often, but you aren’t sure if you ever learned his name. It didn’t surprise you when he confessed that they had become moirails, around his sixth sweep. And then he talked of this girl, her name is Tasaln and she’s really weird, she’s a highblood, Dad, but I think she likes me and I don’t really know why! And you chuckled and took him outside to hunt and spar, the whole time wondering exactly when you would have to have the dreaded ‘bulges and buckets’ talk with your innocent Skolec.  
But you knew when he was growing up. He closed the door to his respiteblock more often, and spent less time outside scavenging, and didn’t talk to you nearly as much. You tried to understand that he was changing, but it still sent pangs through you to watch him trudge around the hive looking sullen and brooding and know there was nothing you could do about it.  
He wanted to study the wildlife found on Alternia. He had books ranging from picture books to encyclopedias stuffed on his shelves, and on the few occasions he left his door open, he was deeply immersed in research about lusii on his husktop. He had observed you often, watching you as you moved, considering carefully what you ate and how long you slept and on one occasion, removing your shed skin from the hive, as was his duty, but not before weighing it. He would look at your tongue, your forked tail, your eyes, run his hands along your scales, and all of that was just fine to you. You were glad to assist in any way you could, because you knew he would be a fine adult troll someday, doing what he loved most, and you would be so proud you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself.  
The only and major altercation you had was when he shambled through the hive, looking bashful, and asked you if he could explore outside the hive for more than just a night. At your skeptical glance, he defended himself under the pretense of research, he wants to see the other kinds of creatures beyond just this desert, and I don’t know, maybe I’d go and see Nepeta in person, I won’t be gone for more than two days, three at most. Against your better judgment, you relented; though impulsive, he is intelligent and knows his limits and probably won’t try to pick any fights. Besides, you thought maybe you had been sheltering him a little bit; most lusii leave the hive for multiple days every now and then, leaving their wards to fend for themselves. A young troll on his own isn’t so different from that, you supposed.  
He was gone for four days and three nights. Very, very late on the fourth night, he squeezed into the hive, looking apprehensive, and his expression when he saw you coiled in front of him, prepared to strike, made your stomach turn with anger and relief and dismay. Then an unfamiliar but repulsive stench hit you, and you practically screeched in fury. Highblood. More purple than indigo, but not entirely purple. Either way, you knew exactly why a highblood’s reek had contaminated your ward.  
The two of you brawled. You hissed and spat and lunged for him, and he growled and slashed and snarled right back. Both of you received wounds, cuts and scrapes and punctures, and the same shade of bright green blood leaked out of them and collected on the stony floor.  
You’ve never been exactly sure when your fight ended, but it did, and both of you slumped to the floor. He had tried to explain himself. I really did want to go out and explore the other kinds of wildlife. I didn’t mean to get so sidetracked, but I realized I could go and visit Tasa, and once I had that thought it wouldn’t go away and eventually I just went to see her and didn’t think twice about it anymore, and I stayed at her hive for some time, but I did spend most of that time traveling, and I did find and observe more species. I know I worried and lied to you, Dad. I’m sorry.  
Though the anger inside you still burned, not letting you forget his betrayal, you decided that even if you can’t forget, you can forgive. You looked at his eyes closely, noticing for the first time the gray that surrounded his pupils and obscured the bright green, and finally you allowed yourself to relent, swiping your tongue up across his face like you’ve done since he was small. His relief washed over you like a tide, but your insides seized up at the acknowledgement that he was no longer the tiny, dependent troll you happened across deep in the subterranean caves so many sweeps ago.

These are the things you think about as you lay dying in his own respiteblock, cringing at the flashes of pain surging through you, as he sits with your head in his lap, softly touching your head and murmuring things to you, tears threatening to fall from his eyes.  
“Do you remember when we had to run like hell from that lost, deranged cholerbear?” he asks you with the bittersweet ghost of a smile on his lips. “I still don’t know what it was doing in a desert like this. And remember when I was like four and we fought off a mangy howlbeast, the two of us? We had it running off to lick its wounds in five minutes. I never forgot that night. I hope it was okay though.”  
You feel like you could fall into the safety of sleep just listening to your ward’s voice, but you force yourself to stay awake, knowing that if you allowed yourself to slip away, there was a very good chance you wouldn’t return.  
Something wet plops directly onto your head, and you stare up at him, trying to focus. Green-tinted tears are flowing freely down his cheeks, and his face is contorted in such confused pain you would probably have shed tears too, if you could.  
“Dad, what’s wrong with you? Why is this happening? Lusii are supposed to be lifelong guardians to their wards...you can’t die now, I’m barely seven...”  
You know. You gaze into his eyes, trying to recall the bright green irises you recognized from his youth. Never once had you thought that you wouldn’t live to see them reappear after adolescence. Maybe the gray is more opaque than it was yesterday, you think to yourself hopefully, pretending that the change wasn’t just an illusion, or a delusion, of a dying lusus.  
His husktop, visible through the corner of your eye, goes to sleep, and the room becomes that much darker. He continues to cradle your head, not even pretending to hide his tears like he normally would. “Tasa...Tasa said her lusus was sick too...is it an epidemic? A disease? There has to be a cure,” he says, but you know his words are hollow and his hope dead. He squeezes his eyes shut and more tears fall into his lap and onto your face.  
The pain increases, and you hiss quietly as it flares and dies erratically, feeling your whole body writhe and spasm without your consent. He is silent for a long time, but you can feel oblivion beckoning. You must speak to him. Somehow, you have to.  
You open your mouth and, like metal grinding on metal, your voice rasps, “Skolec.”  
It grabs his attention, and he gapes at you. You inch forward just a little bit. “My...ward,” you groan in the same hideous voice. Lusii aren’t made for speaking the language of trolls, and you are probably just hastening your looming death, but you can’t let yourself go without at least trying to communicate. Your weary mind races to think of something else to say, anything, before it collapses on itself. “My...sun.”  
He looks as if he wants to say something, but for once his impulse control kicks in, and he is silent, teary.  
“Please...do not...forget me,” you say. “Remember...what I have...taught you. You have...made me...so proud to be...your guardian. Please...continue...making me proud...whatever you choose...”  
Your voice breaks, like a bone snapping in two, and you know you have nothing left. Skolec is openly sobbing, trying to clutch your head to his chest. “Dad, I’m so sorry I can’t do anything, that I’ve never told you what you mean to me, that I’ve shrugged you off and disobeyed you and—“  
It takes more energy than you ever thought was possible to wring out of your aching body, but you drag your tail across the floor to bring it to his face in what you hope is a comforting gesture. You’re too weak to brush the tears from his eyes, like you used to do when he was small and had nightmares, but his hand reaches up to grasp at it like he’s the only thing grounding you to this world.  
“You never did like Tasa, did you?” he says in a subdued voice, staring at the floor just beyond you instead of meeting your eyes.  
Though it takes you an eternity to open your jaw to speak, and even longer for the words to come through, you manage, feeling the very last of your energy dissipate as you do so.  
“Make...her...proud. Make...us...proud.”  
Your head drops onto his lap and you close your eyes, but you are still able to linger for just a few moments more as he says, concerned, “Dad?” He waits for a reply that he knows will never come, then he says with a strong confidence that makes your hearts swell, “I will.”  
You vanish.

**Author's Note:**

> your regularly scheduled rosemary will be back basically whenever i man up and post again


End file.
